Nightmares that have plagued me since childhood

[OBIO]

This is 100% not flight related, 100% not news, and most likely 100% something that you will feel is a waste of your time reading.....

When I was a kid, television had a number of shows and documentary types that focused on UFOs, Loch Ness monster, the Bermuda Triangle and such. The content of these shows that scared me the most was when they focused on Bigfoot. Bigfoot was the absolutely scariest thing in my universe......simply because I KNEW he was real. Realer than the Easter Bunny, realer than Santa Claus, realer than the Tooth Fairy....Bigfoot was rock solid, no doubt about it REAL.

I knew Bigfoot was real because Eastern and South Eastern Ohio has been a pretty hot area for Bigfoot for hundreds of years. First it was the Injuns who lived in Ohio who saw him, then the white folks began reporting seeing him when they moved into the area. Commonly called The Grass Man, Bigfoot is in Ohio.

And just a few miles from my house, which was WAY out in the country, and surrounded by thick hardwood forest and deep valleys, was a place that had long been called Goat Holler (or Goat Hollow for those who don't have a hillbilly tongue in your mouth). Goat Holler was stated to be the home of some large, hairy, upright walking monster that made a sound that was vaguely goat like. Old Timers told of hearing that haunting call echoing up and down the valleys around Goat Holler.

Now I know that the legend of Goat Holler is more than a legend....it is a FACT! It has long been said that NO dog will ever go into Goat Holler, not even during the day. Champion hunting dogs will stop at the edge of the Holler and pee all over themselves...that is what the Old Timers said. So one day, when I was around 11 years old, I took my dog, Blackjack, for a walk through the woods. Now Blackjack was not your typical child's dog. He was 1/2 German Shepard, 1/2 King Shepard. He took after his King Shepard daddy....Blackjack tipped the scales at 155 pounds....imagine a German Shepard as large as a Bull Mastiff. Blackjack was definitely no wimpy dog.....at the age of 9 months he kicked the crap out of a full blood, full grown Alaskan Timber Wolf that lived at the farm up over the hill from us. And when Blackjack was 2, and fully grown and mature, that foolish wolf came back over the hill, into our yard, and took a dash at my Mom. Blackjack killed that wolf like he was simply peeing on a Dandylion. Now Blackjack would follow me anywhere I went....except into the Goat Holler....that's where I took him that day. And nothing I did or said would get that huge black and sable Shepard to cross that unseen border of Goat Holler.

Yes sir, the Old Timers were right all along....Goat Holler has a monster living in it....and I KNEW that that monster was Bigfoot!

Now....I was a child prone to nightmares (and still am prone to nightmares) and the nightmare I had most often was Bigfoot! 3, 4 sometimes 5 times a week I would wake up from a nightmare about Bigfoot. And I would be terrified out of my skull. I KNEW he was real, I KNEW he was a face eating son of a Beech, and I knew that if he got the change he would eat my face. And when I woke up from these nightmares, I KNEW that he was standing in front of the window that was by the head of my bed.....peering into my small dark room, his large glowing eyes working to see even the smallest movement that would reveal my presence. I would lay there in my bed.....heart beating in my chest so hard I feared that the sound alone would give Bigfoot cause to attack....I would not move...not one muscle, not an eye would twitch....I would arrest even the movement of my eyelashes in the air from the fan on my small desk. Breathing was done small and shallow....barely quarter breaths of air each time I inhaled and exhaled. I would remain in that state of terror for HOURS....knowing that if I moved even the tiniest of muscles, Bigfoot would thrust his huge hairy hand and arm through the window, grab me, yank me into the night, eat my face off and leave my lifeless, faceless body wedged into the fork of a tree somewhere for later consumption.

My childhood is just a barely visible spec in the rear view mirror of my life. Blackjack has been gone for 2 and a half decades. But Bigfoot remains! And he is still standing outside of my window....ready to eat my face off.

Tim

[lemonadedrinker]

Hi OBIO,
That is terrifying certainly. And a wonderful bit of writing as well!

Rather than see him/she/it as a face chewing monster, leaving half-eaten carcases in the forks of trees, might it be helpful for your waking state well-being to start thinking of the creature as a vegetarian?:sheep: There are no reports of dead people in trees in Ohio are there? It looks too slow in the few pics I've seen of it to catch anything that has a heart-beat, and a critter with 4 legs,even short ones, could outrun the weird looking Bigfoot thingy.


Andy.

[stansdds]

Uh-huh... ok... :isadizzy:

[norab]

The depth of control our childhood experiences have on us is remarkable. As to Bigfoot, who knows, but if I had a dog that bada** and something scared it. I'd be scared sh**less too. I used to suffer from childhood night terrors also, but they eventually ceased, but when my Dad passed away about 18 months ago, a new set of dreams started occuring that are so real it is hard to tell from the real world. Perhaps some recent event in your life has restarted your terriors.
In any case, thanks for sharing, if we can't help each here, no matter what the area of life, it would be a sadder place. Hang in there Tim, I'll keep you and yours in my prayers *


* would have loved to have met Blackjack, he sounds like he was awesome

[robcap]

Nice read, not to be taken too seriously I hope :kilroy:

R.

[av8erjm]

Way, way back when I was a wee lad there was a radio show called Inner Sanctoum, it started out with a door slowly creaking open and then a gravely voice saying Gooood Evening. Boy that would keep me up all nite with a flashlight. I remember my mom being so upset with my dad letting me listen to the show, I guess he took some enjoyment out of my reactions to the show

[CybrSlydr]

I lived in SE Ohio for 20 years - never remember hearing anything about Bigfoot in the area, but...

One day I was sleeping over at my friend Josh's house (I think I was in 4th grade). He had a HUGE back yard that went downhill for a good 75 yards to a heavily wooded forest. Well, we were staying up at night playing Jurassic Park on Nintendo (great times) and I also happened to have checked out some books from my school library. One happened to be a Bigfoot book.

I happened to look out the window towards the woods (the house was dark as it was night and everyone was sleeping, so this was easy to see) and saw this stationary red glow in the woods. I immediately thought it was Bigfoot's eyes and couldn't sleep. I just watched that glow for hours until I finally gave in.

Next day we went outside with his beebee gun and headed that way (I didn't tell him about Bigfoot). Turns out it was a red reflector picking up the moonlight they had on a pole - that way they knew the woodline at night. lol

I, too, had childhood nightmares about UFOs and abductions and Bigfoots. :)

[Navy Chief]

A couple nights ago I had a nightmare; a real doozy.

Dreamt I was in some type of closet, but the door had vents. I could see a dark-robed figure approaching the door, and it looked like "death", complete with a scythe.......

In my dream I was holding a machete. "Death" approached the door, and I started screaming. My girl friend woke me, and I was, to say the least, shaken by the experience......

NC

[brad kaste]

Yeah,.....can definitely relate to Obio's nightmares as a youth. Except his was more real than mine. Like most kids of the 50's, one went to the Saturday movies to watch the latest science fiction/creature movie. You name it,...."Invaders from Outer Space", "Them", "Forbidden Planet", to "Creature from the Black Lagoon",...we saw them all. However,...the one that put me nearly over the edge was "Invader from Mars."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invaders_from_Mars_%281953_film%29

The movie starts out where this young boy (a bit older than myself) looks out his bedroom window and observes this flying saucer zoom into a large sandpit in his back yard and then buries itself underground. Then the fun begins. Or the scariness. Take your pick. At the end of movie this 'head-creature' alien leader (encapsulated in a glass bulb no less!) with waving Medusa like arms gives orders to the alien foot soldiers through telepathy. It was almost too much to take. For sure this was gonna' happen,...or so I thought,....right behind my house.
Going to bed for the next few nights plenty of blankets were piled high upon me. With only my nose sticking out occasionally for fresh air. My mother found it odd why I would have these winter blankets weighing upon me when it was either a sticky-hot June or July at the time. Plus no air conditioning........just an open bedroom window to look out of waiting for the damn saucer to dig it self into the back yard.

[n4gix]

"Forbidden Planet" was the genesis for years of nightmares in my case. That damned invisible monster haunted me for nearly 20 years!

There was one other movie about the aftermath of an atomic war (I can't remember the title now), that took place somewhere along the Gulf coast of Florida...

...where the end came when radiation levels finally crept past critical and the entire family started dying off. It was one of the sadest stories I've ever watched.

[Lionheart]

Sorry OBIO.

I pray that you conquer this fear and you will start sending that beast running with its tail between its legs... :)

To quote Brian Gladden; what does not kill me better start running now!



My nightmares around Kindergarten and 1st Grade were from a British movie my mom took us to at the drivein. I think it was called 30 million miles to Earth. While digging a new subway tunnel in London, they happen upon a buried UFO from Mars or somewhere, but buried long ago. They finally get the crew cabin 'storage' compartment open and 3 giant (3 foot high, not huge) locusts or grass hopper things with HUGE composite eyes are found in there, frozen, and start immediately thawing out and rotting and falling apart (very very old). But odd things are happening to the minds of the scientists, solidiers and guards and workers. It starts to get crazy then happy ending (if I remember correctly). Old movie, black and white, and for a young child, very scary.... :S


Giant crickets! ACKKKKKKKKKKKK!

[OBIO]

Folks...I am fine....no need for prayers...at least not over Bigfoot dreams. Yeah, I still have nightmares about Bigfoot...but my bedroom is on the second floor....he can't reach me NOW! LOL!

I find it odd that the two things that nearly all of my nightmares are about are Bigfoot and Zombies. Actually, most of my dreams are about Bigfoot and Zombies...even the non-scary dreams somehow have Bigfoot or Zombies in them.

It's just odd that the subject of my childhood nightmares would be the subject of my middle age nightmares. Not bankruptcy, not prostate cancer, not male pattern baldness. Bigfoot. The subject of my nocturnal frights for 40 years. Heck, the Boogeyman only stuck around for a few years and he went away. Vampires, werewolves, witches and ghosts.....puleeeze...they stopped being nightmare creatures long long ago.....they simply didn't have the grit to remain scary. Amateurs in comparison to Bigfoot.

Am I still convinced that Bigfoot is real? You can take it to the bank that I do believe that Bigfoot is a real creature. I know no one can explain why a Bigfoot has never been captured, killed or found dead....but then again no one can explain where those socks go when they disappear from the dryer. Do I still believe that he is standing outside my window ready to eat my face off? No.

Tim

[lemonadedrinker]

Hi,

I can relate to the sock business..I only buy black socks and yet when they come out of the wash....yup, you got it.... blue ones... green ones... and patterns on the black socks I never bought and then I can never match any of them up to form a pair:isadizzy:


Andy.

[Tako_Kichi]

Thinking about scary movies that affect you long after the movie is over does anyone remember one from the 50's/60's era that featured TV sets on stands/carts that grew huge claws/talons on the bottom of the legs and then went around tearing people up. I wasn't very old when I saw it and it scared the poop out of me for years after but I am darned if I can remember the name of the movie now.

I also remember watching some episodes of the original 60's 'Doctor Who' shows from behind the sofa, ready to pop out of sight when the scary stuff came on! :icon_lol:

[arfyhun]

Lionheart, could the film you are mentioning possibly be 'Quatermass and the pit'?

The Goons did a spoof radio programme at the time called 'The Scarlet Capsule'.

In it the Goons, (Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers et al) are digging and come across a scarlet capsule which in the end turns out to be a London Transport underground train left in a siding years ago.

Absolutely ace.

If anybody would like a copy PM me with your details and I'll gladly send you it.

Graham Sullivan.

[ST0RM]

As part of a paper I had to write for my Humanities class, I had to describe my version of a Heaven or Hell. I chose Hell since my views of Heaven were pretty standard. Long story short, to me nightmares are a glimpse of what Hell will be like for each person. This could be your afterlife torment.

Hope you get past it.

-Jeff

[robcap]

Obio, you crack me up :applause: ROFL:applause:
You should check our missing socks section in the closet, and I'm a long way awat from Ohio.
Now where's that like button.

R

[AckAck]

If you lived in Montana, you could sleep easier, since there is one less Bigfoot there...traffic accident.

http://www.livescience.com/22742-bigfoot-hoaxer-killed-in-accident.html







I'm sorry for his family's loss, but what a stupid way to die. Not that there aren't lots of stupid ways to die - I'll probably find my own, eventually.

[Naismith]

I had 2 recurring nightmares as a child. One was generated by the show "The Outer Limits" a couple of episodes got mixed up, one where there was an alien who transmitted himself to earth on a radio beam - he looked manshaped but shone and his skin looked like tapioca. The other episode involved robotic spiders. I for years checked under the bed at night before going to sleep for fear of those damned spiders.
The other was generated by a delirium brought on by a fall down stairs at elementary school, I had unbeknown to anyone broken an ankle. I walked home on it at end of schoolday and promptly collapsed on my bed. The nightmare (don't laugh) consisted of me being pursued by a maniacal Lucille Ball. She was chasing me through the streets of New York City, I was running for all my worth, and the stupid bit was she was leaning over the bows of a ship which was tearing up the tarmac of the streets in its pursuit of me. She was hollering and waving her arms with a rolling pin in one hand threatening to `whoop me`
That recurred at couple of times even after the ankle got fixed up.
Analyse that one.

[cheezyflier]

man, you guys really are weird! none of you had the naked in school dream like most normal people? hahahahahano but for serious. my little sister is 45 and still sleeps with her head under the covers to make sure the aliens can't see her when they scan the roof looking for people to abduct. the only recurring nightmare i remember is the one where i lose my son in a mall parking lot, and franticly look for him and no one will help me find him. they all want to distract me and slow me down. my son is 27 now. i've had that dream just recently as 5 yrs ago.

[Toastmaker]

Very interesting subject to me. In college I did a lot of work in a psych lab as part of my major studies and knew some people focusing on dream analysis and dream-state physiology. Short version is that very little is known about what provokes dreams or what creates dream scenario circumstances repetitively in the human mind.

Repeating dream/nightmares are not unusual for people and, as noted, often start in childhood and are often related to things seen or heard. Those connections are not hard to make for children but how does one explain the dream where the totality of the scenario is completely foreign or previously unknown to the dreamer ? For example - a person dreams of having to repair a water pumping windmill in Holland around the 1930's and it's raining heavilly and he's forgotten his tools but someone walks by and loans him a crescent wrench. This dreamer is male, lives in Sarasota, Fla., has never travelled outside the USA, knows nothing of Holland, windmills or tools and has seen no movies or shows relative to these things. . . ie; where's the connection ?

Anyway, it's interesting research and our depth of understanding of the human mind is rudimentary, at best.

[KellyB]

Very interesting subject to me. In college I did a lot of work in a psych lab as part of my major studies and knew some people focusing on dream analysis and dream-state physiology. Short version is that very little is known about what provokes dreams or what creates dream scenario circumstances repetitively in the human mind.

Repeating dream/nightmares are not unusual for people and, as noted, often start in childhood and are often related to things seen or heard. Those connections are not hard to make for children but how does one explain the dream where the totality of the scenario is completely foreign or previously unknown to the dreamer ? For example - a person dreams of having to repair a water pumping windmill in Holland around the 1930's and it's raining heavilly and he's forgotten his tools but someone walks by and loans him a crescent wrench. This dreamer is male, lives in Sarasota, Fla., has never travelled outside the USA, knows nothing of Holland, windmills or tools and has seen no movies or shows relative to these things. . . ie; where's the connection ?

Anyway, it's interesting research and our depth of understanding of the human mind is rudimentary, at best.

It is interesting stuff; I have had wierd scenarios like that where I must accomplish some oddball task or some unspecified consequence will occur. Of course, the odds are against me, and everything is conspiring to thwart me. I never find out how it works out. It does have a lot in common with waking real life working on our old house, though.

I'd like to probe the mind of your avatar: How can anyone be that happy???

[Toastmaker]

He he. . . It's not hard to please a cat.

:running:

[ThinkingManNeil]

Very well written, Obi0, enjoyed reading it. I don't put much stock in dream interpretation, I think they're reflections of our psyche and our experiences. I do acknowledge, however, that dreams, especially nightmares and night terrors, and be extremely powerful and even traumatic.

I'm not entirely convinced in the existence of Bigfoot/Sasquatch/Yeti, but I do admit some of the evidence is interesting, but something much more tangible than anecdotal evidence is required to clinch it. I find the research being done into what's called the midtarsal break found in some casts of Sasquatch footprints intriguing.

I was disappointed in the TV show "Bigfoot Hunters" that was on the Discovery Channel awhile back. Having "true believers" along who take every twig snap for a Bigfoot campout doesn't help science. Only careful, methodical adherence to the scientific method and skepticism will establish the truth of things. That doesn't mean that it's a subject unworthy of scientific research IMO, though.

N.

[SSI01]

There used to be a program on in the evenings around Detroit (local TV) in the 60s called "One Step Beyond," that had John Newland as the host. In those days (early 60s) there was a general interest in UFOs, paranormal experiences, and so on, and OSB played brilliantly into that interest. It's draw was that many of the stories shown in the series were fact-based. That would REALLY scare you, because the basis of the story was actually documented to have happened. In some cases the locations of the events were given as well. The shows were food for a lot of thought.

[Odie]

I had 2 recurring nightmares as a child. One was generated by the show "The Outer Limits" a couple of episodes got mixed up, one where there was an alien who transmitted himself to earth on a radio beam - he looked manshaped but shone and his skin looked like tapioca. The other episode involved robotic spiders. I for years checked under the bed at night before going to sleep for fear of those damned spiders.
The other was generated by a delirium brought on by a fall down stairs at elementary school, I had unbeknown to anyone broken an ankle. I walked home on it at end of schoolday and promptly collapsed on my bed. The nightmare (don't laugh) consisted of me being pursued by a maniacal Lucille Ball. She was chasing me through the streets of New York City, I was running for all my worth, and the stupid bit was she was leaning over the bows of a ship which was tearing up the tarmac of the streets in its pursuit of me. She was hollering and waving her arms with a rolling pin in one hand threatening to `whoop me`
That recurred at couple of times even after the ankle got fixed up.
Analyse that one.

Naismith, looked up the Lucille Ball dream in my "Every Dream and What They Mean" book. It analyzed the dream in two words....NOT GOOD. :icon_lol:

[Naismith]

Naismith, looked up the Lucille Ball dream in my "Every Dream and What They Mean" book. It analyzed the dream in two words....NOT GOOD. :icon_lol:
Clearly I am damaged goods...... Nurse! I need my pills!